Dáil debates

Tuesday, 17 February 2015

4:10 pm

Photo of Ruth CoppingerRuth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I will read a short segment which describes how he feels about being asked to intervene in the water charges issue. He states:

What is really bringing the Gardai into disrepute is not the water charge protesters, but the government that is using us against them.  As a Garda, I am to prevent protesting the installation of water meters, but as a worker, I am not paying when the bills drop in April. An Garda Siochana is paying a heavy price for their role in the introduction of the water tax.  We are losing credibility with the ordinary man and woman. Successive governments have long since willed the Gardai of our country to be protectors of corporate Ireland and their vested interests at the expense of workers.
Is this garda not right? Are the Garda and the courts not being used to defend corporate interests and the establishment, as we see in the anti-water charge protests and have seen in the cases of the Greyhound and Thomas Cook workers, Rossport and many other circumstances? How else could one describe the current policing of communities which are protesting against the installation of water meters that do not benefit them, that only benefit companies, including some which are owned by the richest man in Ireland, Mr. Denis O'Brien?

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